Neighbors Red Band Trailer: Seth Rogen And Zac Efron Go Head-to-Head

With James Franco getting the celebrity roast treatment tonight on Comedy Central, Seth Rogen has taken the opportunity to give audiences a preview of his new film. A red band trailer for the upcoming comedy Neighbors - formerly known as Townies - has arrived online courtesy of MTV.

Directed by Nicholas Stoller, who previously helmed both Forgetting Sarah Marshall and The Five-Year Engagement, the new film centers on a young couple (Rogen, Rose Byrne) who have just had their first child and are looking to start living a nice quiet life in the suburbs. This plan is interrupted, however, when a frat house from the local university moves in next door. While the couple initially try to recapture their youth and hang with the college kids, eventually the relationship between the two houses completely deteriorates and they find themselves in all-out war.

The weirdest thing about this red band trailer is the simple fact that it completely lacks anything red band. The only bit in the entire spot getting anywhere near R-rated is the scene where Christopher Mintz-Plasse is having sex with a girl in the bushes next to the house, but the truth is that we've seen more risque stuff in green-band trailers. Isn't it kind of weird that they don't even say "fuck" once? I'm curious what the MPAA found so objectionable about it. Perhaps the studio pushed the MPAA to give it a harsher rating because they wanted to be edgy showing a red band trailer on television.

In addition to the new trailer, The Playlist has also dug up three new stills from the movie - and there's a good chance you recognize them from the spot above. First we have Zac Efron, as the president of the frat, wearing his Travis Bickle costume (and Dave Franco pulling a perfect De Niro face in a Meet The Parents get-up):

Here is Efron doing some topless grilling while a couple of college girls stand nearby and chat:

And finally we have Efron smoking a pipe, Franco wielding a pair of gardening sheers, and Mintz-Plasse looking on from the background. It's easily the strangest of the group.

Neighbors also stars Lisa Kudrow, Jake Johnson, Ike Barinholtz, Jason Mantzoukas and Carla Gallow and will be in theaters on May 9th.